I’ve been pretty exhausted lately. It’s reached the point where today I actually had this conversation with Anna Marie as I was toodling off somewhere:

Lee: Peace be with you!
[a beat]
Lee: …Is that from the Bible or Star Wars?
AM: Girl. Bible. You’re thinking of “May the Force be with you.”

So when Remy’s birthday rolled around this year, I sort of hoped he’d forget about it so I wouldn’t be expected to, you know, do anything. Unfortunately, my brother is self-aware and remembers things like when he was born.

I set a dangerous precedent for his birthday and Christmas gifts, in which I make him atrocious music videos, like this and this. He hasn’t forgotten about those, either, as I was reminded over gchat on his big day:

Remy: where’s my music video?
me: you needy Nelly
I’ll think of something. I still have… 9 hours?
Remy: i don’t know what time i was born…but let’s pretend you have until tomorrow morning
me: I work well under pressure.
Remy: well, i’m not going to pull your leg, but if you want to make me a video i’m sure i’ll love it

No pressure, right?

Anyway, I decided to truck through and comply with his request. Be careful what you wish for, however, because sometimes what you want for your birthday is something meaningful and special but what you get is an atrocity like this:

Happy birthday, Remy! I hope everyone is lucky enough to know Someone Like You.

Exhibit A: An Ice Skating Rink

Discovery Green got iced!

I never expected this city to be capable of maintaining an outdoor ice skating rink, but boy was I wrong.

Exhibit B: A Makeshift Snow Storm

This is 80,000 pounds of snow!!

The Museum of Natural Science concocted 80,000 pounds of snow, which was more underwhelming than it sounds. This is most likely the only “snow storm” these kids have ever experienced. Parents bundled up their children in heavy coats, boots, and mittens, and the kids were clearly overheating. A sign was posted outside the fence that read: “Children found throwing snowballs at other people will be asked to leave the snow area.”

Exhibit C: Outdoor Ice Sculptures

ICE SCULPTURE COMPETITIONS!

When I showed up at at the annual ice sculpting competition, I expected some graceful artist-types with a potential masochistic inclination towards the cold. This was not the case.

Turns out most ice sculptors are big men with bandanas and chainsaws.

The emcee for the event was named DJ Dirty Hands, and he announced that we were just in time for an ice sculpting face-off and live music from Downfall 2012. Let’s just say it was not what I expected either:

Video compliments of the esteemed Josh Fischer.

One of my favorite moments was near the middle of the competition when a nine year-old boy was given a fake sword and began hacking at the ice; this served no real purpose.

As I exited the competition, I realized I was in the presence of stilt dancers.

Not sure how my camera pulled this off.

“Winter” in Houston is awesome.

We ran into some difficulties before the day even began:

1. I’m from New Jersey and Jordie hails from Florida (essentially New Jersey displaced), so neither of us know how to cook anything Southern cuisine.

2. We’d planned it as a surprise. Unfortunately, Anna Marie hates surprises. After pestering us for weeks about whether or not we were “actually going to do something” to celebrate her birthday, we finally buckled. She expressed some enthusiasm, but mostly dread that Jordie and I would be responsible for preparing food for friends.

3. Since we invited about 20 of her closest friends to join us at 11:30am, we needed to start cooking at 8am. We appointed Anna Marie as videographer, meaning we had to rouse the birthday girl at the ungodly hour of 7:30am on a Saturday. This was an unpopular decision.

4. We had just quelled a bug invasion in our apartment that very week.

Luckily, the stars aligned and breakfast was [mostly] edible! Jordie and I edited our most impressive moments from our foray in the kitchen into a short film. Please honor Anna Marie’s big day by viewing the video below.

Upon arrival we obtained our sensors with code names, and our marshal led us into the Briefing Room. As we oathed to play fair, play smart, and give it our all, we realized we were literally two feet taller than any of our opponents.

Amidst The Player's Code

This is when it came to our attention that we were totally crashing Sophia’s twelfth birthday party. Before entering the arena, we did our best to look less intimidating by taking this really terrible.

Lee clearly brought the smiles for our outing.

Once we got into the maze, we ran atop the fort – the perfect location for attack. The smoke, black lights, and eery music set the scene, and it all began. Twelve-year-old girls swarmed us periodically, making themselves perfect targets as we manned our fort. There was a lot of shrieking and giggling from the birthday bunch.

Playing nice at Sophia's party.

The best surprise of the entire experience was the awesome code names our opponents chose. MRS. BIEBER, CHCLTCREAM, GEKOLOVER, BUCKWHEAT, and PIGGY put up some good competition.

CHCLTCREAM beat BELGIUM!

DAVIDBOWIE for the win.

Instead of ruining a wedding this year, we may have accidentally ruined a twelve-year-old’s birthday party. Regardless, Sophia’s birthday party was a blast! We fled the scene to hang out with these cool kids.

And they all lived happily ever after.

The first sign of replacing Lee came when I learned that both Meredith and Remy would be home for the weekend. I was stoked for sibling time! Since Lee wasn’t there, her room became my abode.

Sleeping so sweetly with Lee's ukulele.

For years I’ve heard about the big horse racing event that takes place in Far Hills. Coincidentally I had perfect timing to attend!

The Hunt

I spent most of the day explaining why I was in town instead of Lee, wearing boots and mittens that I found in her closet. (Here’s a shout out to Maggie, our avid blog reader, who inspired this post!) While watching horses, look who I ran into!

Lee’s fabulous high school friends!

If there’s one thing Lee has taught me about life, it’s pizza. That’s why I spent some quality time at her favorite pizza joint.

Lenny's pizza is the way to Lee's heart.

Over the course of my stay, Mom and Dad Mimms really made me feel like their own daughter.

My identity theft couldn’t be more unintentional.

One aspect of my job is visiting high schools. Here I am where High School Lee gained an education.

I try to look like an adult when on the job.

And that’s not all folks! Philippe and I hung out at Lehigh for an evening!

Philippe is awesome.

No weekend in Far Hills is complete without a Mimms Family Brunch. I tagged in and took over Lee’s normal preparation duties.

Cheers to family bonding!

By the time I left town, I had experienced the life of Lee Mimms. It was really too bad Lee wasn’t in town to hang out with her family, but it was an honor to play her role for a weekend.

Fulfilling our daily apron-wearing quota.

As we waited for Paula, I noticed the demographic surrounding us: 90% middle-aged women with big hair. When she hit the stage, they went camera crazy!

Look at all those cameras!

Paula invited her husband Michael on stage, and I expected them to start cooking. I soon realized I was attending a Paula Deen comedy show. The only cook at work was a Whole Foods chef, making Paula’s Southern comfort foods on the kitchen behind her with the help of Michael.

Paula’s comedy show involved liberal use of the words y’all and butter. She said she felt at home in Houston with her big hair and personality. Instead of telling cooking stories, we heard about how her dog ran away from her, the experience of being in the delivery room when her grandson was born, and a lot of sexual innuendo. At one point, she pulled out a chunk of her fake hair and told us about the time her husband took her on a “romantical” date. The audience clapped constantly. It was a blast!

My video footage was limited, but here’s a snippet of butter and Houston talk:

Paula Deen talks about butter in Houston from Anna Smith on Vimeo.

And that’s the story of how Lee permanently adopted the Paula Deen “Hey yall” to her vocabulary.

Philippe [a brother] finally turned 20. For the next 9 months, all 4 Mimms siblings will be in their 20′s together. Apparently this is something we’re really excited about.

welcome to the club!

Happy birthday, Philippe!

I was a little nervous about the tasting. I discovered yesterday that cashews may be my least favorite nut.

This is my game face. No wonder I never made varsity.

But, guys! Here’s the thing! It actually wasn’t bad!

In fact, Anna Marie, with equal parts pleasure, sincerity, and surprise, commented after sampling the cheese, “This is actually really good!”

So now I’m thinking of starting a cashew cheese food truck and am open to suggestions for names.

Cashew on the flip side!

Barefoot Contessa - watch out!

This is not good.

Without anyone to check and balance me, I find myself engaging in a variety of projects ripe with potential disaster.

One activity I generally do not participate in – and which I particularly should avoid doing solo – is cooking/baking/preparing food in any way that does not directly involve the use of a microwave.

So, in the absence of my two Jiminy Crickets, I decided to dive headfirst into food-creation by making cheese. Naturally.

This is why it's best not to leave me to my own devices. They should never travel.

Inspired by a conversation with my pen pal, in which she sent me this article about one of the actors from Home Improvement, I resolved to attempt cashew cheese.

Equipped with this recipe, I toodled over to the grocery store.

I am not known for being particularly efficient in grocery stores. The overwhelming amount of products mixed with my tendency towards distraction lends itself to lengthy trips, culminating in me not buying anything I actually need.

But how can you not get carried away when your local grocery store features such astounding displays of pastry architecture?

You down with HEB? Yeah, you know me!

All things considered, my trip was relatively quick. I only needed 3 items for my recipe. It took me 45 minutes, and I left with 5. Oops. But they were très superfluous necessary.

The first step in creating this faux-cheese is to soak the cashews for 2 hours.

There is nothing worse than getting all excited about a project, and having to wait two hours to be able to do anything with it. It’s at this point that I started to regret my decision.

The world's most boring activity.

Finally, the cashews were adequately soaked. I threw all of the required ingredients in a blender, and then accidentally added some additional ones. Feeling cocky, I tried to mimic the trick where you squeeze lemon juice out of the lemon and through your fingers, so you catch the seeds and the juice goes into the container. Except my juice kept pooling together in my hand, and I’d spread my fingers the tiniest amount, and oops! About two or three seeds ended up in the mixture. Fun fact: lemon seeds and lightly-blended cashews look the same. There is no hope for you there. Just blend and pray lemon seeds aren’t toxic.

The recipe is rather vague, especially for a culinary idiot like me.* It required I “add water if necessary” to gain the proper consistency. I assumed a hummus-esque texture would do the trick, and ended up with something that looked like this:

Nothing like a bowl of... this... to whet your appetite.

Anyway! I’m supposed to let it settle in a cool place for 24 hours before refrigerating it/sampling it/throwing it away. We don’t, however, use air conditioning, so there really isn’t a “cool place” in sight. I think I’m just going to leave it on the counter and hope for the best. It really can’t get any worse.

This is so wrong.

* An aside: I used to own a paper chef’s hat, given to me by a chef in Charleston, SC. It made me feel like a kitchen wizard. I had to throw it away, sadly, after someone came into my dorm room while I was sleeping freshman year and vomited all over me and my hat collection.